


Misfits

by Nowl



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Goro-centric, M/M, Street artist au, but if i continue this au they totally would, goro was raised by shido, no one has personas, they don't get together in the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 10:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11988234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nowl/pseuds/Nowl
Summary: He thinks of friendship. He thinks of his overbearing father. He thinks of fun.He thinks Akira must make a point of surrounding himself with people who don’t have much left to lose.





	Misfits

**Author's Note:**

> This idea started as "wouldn't it be cool if the phantom thieves were street artists instead of thieves" and then morphed into "how does akechi feel about this".
> 
> Because of course my first Persona 5 fic would center around Akechi.

“Go to bed, kid!”

Goro rolls his eyes, his father hadn’t even bothered to come down the hall to yell at him this time. It is Sunday, granted, but it is also barley past nine-thirty. He gets up and closes his door the rest of the way.

He isn’t even back at his desk before a shout adds, “I’m not telling you again, turn that light out!”

“We have neighbors!” Goro fires back, flipping the light off.

With the light out, he hears his father’s footsteps moving from his office, down the stairs and toward the kitchen. He had hoped he would finish reading his book for English tonight, but it looks like he’ll have to wait until homeroom tomorrow. His phone is low on battery, so he plugs it in before picking up his laptop to hopefully get some other homework done tonight – even if he has to do it tented under his bedspread. Again.

He’s about to climb onto his bed when his phone chimes quietly. He doesn’t receive texts often, so he almost doesn’t recognize the jingle until he notices the glow of the screen from across the room. Curious, he goes back over.

He isn’t all that familiar with the dialect most teens adopt for texting, but what he sees leans oddly formal.

_Akechi Goro – you don’t know me, but I’ve seen you around. Meet me at 10 th and Rose at 10:00._

A second message pops up a moment later.

_With love, Joker, of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts_

Goro cocks an eyebrow. He’s heard the other kids in his class talking about these “phantom thieves”. Their tags are spray-painted and stickered all over the city. He’s heard rumors that they’re part of all sorts of illegal activities, but he isn’t too sure that those aren’t just people flexing their imaginations.

He thinks about his father just downstairs. He wonders if he can still climb down the backyard awning without it collapsing under him. If he can actually catch the bus outside his neighborhood, he can probably make it to the meeting place in fifteen minutes.

Goro shoves his feet into his all-white Converse and prays to every god he can think of that a hoodie will actually keep him warm out there tonight, while replying:

_Fine._

He holds his breath, sliding the window open as slowly as he can. Pushing out the screen without making noise is much harder. He almost has a heart attack when he thinks he might have dropped it, but with wide eyes he holds still and listens for his father.  When he doesn’t hear much, he sets down the screen on the awning and starts shimmying himself outside. He pushes the window closed behind him and crawls to the edge.

Getting down shouldn’t be too difficult from here, but if his father happens to be in the kitchen he might see. Goro takes a deep breath before dropping himself over the edge, and landing in the hedge surrounding the patio. He rolls out and peeks around into the house. He smirks when he sees the lights in the kitchen are off. He gets up and brushes himself off, sneaking around to the front of the house.

It’s a short jog to the bus stop. He rubs his upper arms, glancing down the road, hoping. It’s only a five-minute wait before a bus comes – a driver he’s actually familiar with. “More late-night errands?” she asks as he pays.

Goro pastes on a smile. “Father needed me to pick something up for him.”

She nods and Goro takes his seat – this is the extent of their relationship.

It takes exactly seventeen minutes – Goro counted – to get to Goro’s stop on eighth street. He goes up two streets to tenth, and then four down to Rose from there. The intersection is, thankfully, well lit. Most of the stores are closing or closed, and there is almost no one walking here.

There’s a woman set up at a table with a thick headband and a deck of cards across the road from him. “Goro?” she calls, smiling at him.

He cocks an eyebrow, and looks both ways before jogging across the street. “Joker?” he asks.

She looks surprised for a moment. “Who? Me?” she giggles. “Oh, no, I was just told to make sure you didn’t leave if he wasn’t here on time.” She begins shuffling her cards. “I’m Chihaya,” she says. “The Phantoms call me Fortune.”

“You know them, then?”

She gives him a mysterious smile, flipping a card over. “All the most interesting people do.”

Akechi looks down at her table.

“Oh, it seems Justice calls to you.”

Goro squints his eyes at her. “What?”

“Goro!”

Both Chihaya and Goro glance over to see a very normal looking young man jogging toward them. “Akira!” Chihaya grins, waving.

Akira stops in front of them. “Thanks, Fortune,” he smiles, nodding to her.

“Anytime,” she says, shuffling her cards again.

Goro looks between the two of them. “Joker?” he asks.

Akira shakes his head, holding a finger up in front of his mouth. “I don’t go by that name until I’ve changed my clothes.”

Goro squints at him, confused. “What does that mean?”

“You’ll see,” Akira says, taking Goro’s wrist in his hand. “Come on, we’ve got a long night.”

“Where are we going?” Goro asks as Akira drags him down the sidewalk.

“Did you bring any valuables with you?”

Goro pauses. “What?” He almost stumbles as they step down off the curb. “I brought my wallet?”

Akira guides him down a block before leading him underground and toward a public restroom that Akechi can already smell from outside the door. Two blonds with hands shoved in their pockets are waiting outside. Both grin at the sight of Akira. “Sweet, you got ‘im,” the bleach-blond boy says.

“Obviously,” Akira replies smoothly, coming to a stop in front of them.

The girl, who appears to have more naturally pale hair, starts un-zipping the duffel bag at her feet and pulling clothes out. “Shiho confirmed her parents are out for the rest of the week, so Yusuke can crash at her place instead of yours at the end of the night.”

“Perfect,” Akira replies, taking a wad of black fabric from her.

She looks at Akechi then, passing him a navy sweatshirt and a bright-red mask with a long nose, and smiles. “Welcome aboard, newbie,” she says, before disappearing into the women’s restroom with her own wad of fabric.

The blond boy picks up the duffel bag and turns to go into the men’s restroom, Akira follows. “What is going on?” Goro asks.

Akira glances back at him, smirking, “Just follow us.”

Akira strips off the jacket he’d been wearing, shoving it into the duffel bag that the blond had set back on the floor, pulling on a long, black coat that looks ancient and leather. He pulls a white mask over his head, adjusting it and resting it above his forehead. “You need to change too,” he says, nodding toward Goro.

Goro pauses, but unzips the hoodie he’d brought from home, putting it in the bag with Akira’s things. He pulls on the hoodie that girl had given him. When he notices the tight fit, he looks down to see the pattern – pink stars – and thinks it must have actually belonged to that girl. He sets up the mask over his forehead like Akira did.

Goro watches Akira drop his glasses in the bag as well.

“Skull,” Akira says.

“Gotcha, Boss,” Skull, who has changed into a different jacket and has a skull mask on his head, says, pushing up one of the tiles from the drop ceiling. He shoves the bag with their clothes up there, before replacing the tile.

“Are you Joker now?” Goro asks.

Akira grins, and Goro thinks it looks too dangerous to be sincere. “Let’s do this,” he says.

Skull goes to push up a tile in the corner of the ceiling, before pulling himself up. Goro swallows the knot in his throat when Akira follows. “C’mon,” Akira says, reaching a hand down for Goro.

Goro ignores the hand, pulling himself up.

“Finally,” the girl from before says.

“Ah, shut up,” Skull says. “There were three of us and only one of you.”

“Queen already called wondering where we are,” she replies.

“Queen needs to get that stick out of her –“

“Skull,” Akira says, and Goro gets the feeling this exact conversation happens a lot.

“But –“

“Save it,” Akira says. “We’re going to be even later if you keep arguing.”

The girl smirks. “Ha ha, Dad yelled at you.”

“Dad?” Goro asks.

“Queen’s team mom,” Skull says. “Joker’s only Dad cause there’s no way any of us are calling Fox, Dad.”

Goro nods slowly, absorbing that.

“Anyway,” the girl says. “For tonight, you call the Boss Joker, I’m Panther, and this dweeb is Skull.”

Goro notices that Panther now has put her hair up in pigtails, has a cat mask, and is wearing a bright-red biker jacket. “Why all the weird names?”

“It makes it _just that much_ harder for the police to find us later,” Skull says, and winks.

“We’ve been at this over a year and still haven’t been caught, so it must be working,” Panther adds.

“Can someone tell me _now_ what exactly we’re doing out here?” Goro asks.

“Not yet,” Akira replies. “Panther, lead us out.”

“Aye aye, Boss.”

Goro isn’t even sure if this is how the innards of buildings are supposed to be built, but they come out on the other side of turnstiles so they don’t have to pay to take the train. Goro looks around as they come out of a duct in the wall.

Akira taps his arm. “There’s no cameras over here, we checked before.”

“Right,” Goro replies, absently, following after Panther and Skull.

He’s surprised there’s no one around waiting for a train. One rides by without stopping and as soon as it’s passed, Panther jumps down onto the tracks first. “ _What_?” Goro can feel his fingers start to shake.

Skull jumps down too.

Akira grins. “The night has only just begun,” he says. “You’ve gotta trust us, we’re professionals.”

Without giving Goro time to think, Akira grabs his hand and jumps down as well. “Counting down from forty-seven,” Panther says, running down the tracks.

The others follow, so Goro has no choice. “Forty-seven?”

“Forty-four!” Panther shouts behind her.

“Seconds,” Akira says, winking back at Goro.

Goro feels his heart begin to race. He can’t say for sure how far they run, but when Panther calls, “Ten!” he’s sure he’s about to face death.

She and Skull both dive up onto the platform Goro hadn’t seen coming up, Akira following suit.

“Four!”

Goro stumbles. He can feel heat and tears building in his face the moment he realizes he’s falling.

A train must be coming, and he has no time to pull himself up onto that platform.

The moment he squeezes his eyes shut, still mid-stumble, Akira grabs his arm and uses Skull as leverage to pull Goro up as well.

“Oh,” Panther says. “I was a few seconds early.”

A horn sounds from down the tunnel, but it’s still between five and ten seconds before the train comes to a stop in front of their platform.

Akira guides Goro onto the train by his shoulder and makes him sit down. “Good run, buddy,” Skull says, smacking his shoulder.

Goro is heaving breaths, sure he’d probably been hyperventilating during that run. “You alright?” Akira asks, running a thumb down Goro’s cheek.

“What? Why’re you touching me?” Goro frowns, rubbing his face.

Oh. He actually did start crying.

Akira’s smile turns sheepish. “Don’t worry,” he says. “That should be the most harrowing part of our evening.”

“What the hell was that about?”

Akira blinks at him. “You didn’t realize? The station we went down in has been closed since they renovated the old one barely an eighth of a mile down. Running down the tracks is the smoothest way to get into this station without paying.”

“And you do this all the time?”

Akira cocks his head, thinking. “Actually, that’s only our second time doing that.”

Goro stares at him. “You are unbelievable.”

The train slows. “This is our stop.”

The four of them get off the train and make for the turnstiles. “We don’t have tickets to exit with,” Goro says, crossing his arms.

“We jump over,” Skull says. “They don’t have cops patrolling over here between ten-fifteen and ten-forty and we have a friend who can hack the cameras for the hour for us.”

Goro looks between the three of them. “And this is all normal for you?”

Skull shrugs. “You live with your dad, man, you’ve gotta know how hard it is to find fun around here.”

That is true, as much as Goro hates to admit it. His father is the mayor of the city, and since he started there’s been major crack-downs on rules. The world started to feel a bit like Footloose when all the clubs were shut down within a few months of him taking office, and school dances, proms, and the like were outlawed shortly thereafter. School programs were defunded to the point that only the highest profile private schools could afford to even keep their sports teams, much less art programs.

Masayoshi Shido wanted a city that catered to business and the true “adults”, and whatever culture once existed was being crushed under his patent-leather loafers.

The hop the turnstiles, and on the other side a small group seem to be waiting for them: a tall boy wearing a kitsune mask, a tiny girl with goggles propped up on her forehead, a slightly taller girl with puffy hair and a hat with a very dramatic feather, and a girl with a metal mask, propped against a parked motorcycle – introduced as Fox, Oracle, Noir, and Queen, respectively.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Goro says, bowing his head slightly.

“Can we get on with our fun already?” Oracle asks. “I’m gettin’ antsy.”

Goro does not keep up high hopes that anyone will explain what they’re doing tonight.

“The Hanged Man is waiting in Mementos for us to pick up our supplies,” Queen says. “Moon and Star will be meeting us on sight. Temperance is on standby if we need a getaway.”

“Perfect,” Akira says.

“Where’s Mona going to be?” Panther asks.

Queen shakes her head. “Right, I forgot. Mona, Devil, and my sister will be keeping an eye on the area for the cops.”

“Isn’t it already a little obvious, eight teenagers gathered on the street in the middle of the night?” Goro asks.

Queen smiles and Goro finds himself surprised that she even could. “This is the last place we’re really meeting out in the open. We’re going to the sight separately, but it’s down a road that’s sort of hard to keep eyes on consistently.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ll see when we get there,” Akira tells him.

Goro rolls his eyes. “I’m starting to hate you.”

“So, we need a volunteer team to meet Hanged Man,” Queen says.

“I’ll go with Crow,” Akira says.

Goro looks around, but realizes none of the people he’s looking at have been called Crow. “Me?” he asks.

“The one and only,” Akira says. “There are things you need to see before the end of the night.”

“Moon, Oracle, and I have to set up the rig, so we should get to the sight first,” Skull says.

“Panther and I will take the backstreets to get there. So, Noir and Fox should take the route through the park. Understood?”

Everyone nods.

“Everyone needs to be on sight by ten-fifty, no exceptions,” Akira says.

With that, everyone goes their separate ways without a word. Akira starts walking, and Goro follows.

“Who is this Hanged Man?” Goro asks.

Akira smirks. “A friend. I helped his kid with some trouble after I moved closer to center city so we help each other out from time to time. He owns a shop in that weird part of town that’s right between the rich and poor neighborhoods, kind of a back-alley place but it’s real safe – he’s an ex-gang-leader. Anyway, he sells guns out of the basement so we help keep the police off his trail and in return, he deals us all our materials.”

Goro can only pause to try and absorb all of that. “He..?”

“He’s a real sweet guy,” Akira says. “Kinda mean, but that’s just for show.”

“What kinds of materials, exactly?”

Akira looks at him like that was a stupid question. “Paint,” he replies.

“Paint?”

“Well, spray paint. He hooked us up with a different guy who prints stickers for us, and oh boy was that an adventure, this guy was –“

“You deal with an ex-gang-leader for paint?”

Akira pauses. “Well, yeah,” he says. “If you need help, you need to make friends with other people who need help. If I could do anything to get those tough guys in the rich neighborhood to give me free paint, I would do it – but those guys won’t look twice at any of us.”

Goro thinks about how unfamiliar the faces of Akira and his friends are, even though they live in the same city.

“What school do you go to?” Goro asks.

Akira looks at him. “You don’t know?” he asks. “We all go to the same one. You’re in Ha – Noir’s homeroom.”

“I am? But – “ Well, if he thinks about it, the puffy hair does seem sort of familiar.

“None of us take it personally,” Akira says. “All of the Phantoms, we’ve all always been sort of invisible.”

Things are quiet for the next few minutes.

“Why me, then?” Goro asks.

There is a pause. Akira looks up and him and grins. “I’ll have to tell you that later.”

With that, he darts sharply into an alley and Goro narrowly misses the corner of the wall trying to follow him. Akira knocks sharply on a door directly around the corner. It’s a series that sounds like he must have needed to memorize it. It’s almost a full minute before the door opens, a woman with short black hair and a lab coat peeks out. “Oh, it’s you,” she says. “Your guy’s been down there about ten minutes, you’re right on time.”

“Thank you, Takemi,” Akira says, smiling for her in that way that Goro thought was dangerous earlier.

She moves so the two of them can walk into what looks like a doctor’s office. Maybe a little dirtier, but it still smells like disinfectant. There’s a door marked “Closet” that Akira makes a bee-line for. Behind the coats hanging in the way, there is a cutout, and a ladder leading down.

“This is only one of the entrances to Mementos,” Akira says. “If you’re nice to me I might teach you about all of them.”

“Why did you choose to bring me to this one?”

“Takemi’s entrance is the quietest.”

Goro feels like that may have been a stupid question too.

The ladder feels like it goes down for ages. When they finally get to the bottom, Akira takes out his phone to use as a flashlight. “The door leading to the right tunnel is easy to miss if you don’t know where it is,” Akira tells him.

“This feels like a horror movie,” Goro mumbles in reply.

Akira takes his hand. “You can hold my hand if you’re scared.”

Goro isn’t sure, but he thinks Akira is probably smirking so he pulls his hand away.

They find the door quickly, and the tunnel leading to Mementos is short. Goro can tell how close they’re getting by the pulsing of the music. “A speakeasy?” Goro asks.

“Nowhere else to dance and drink at the same time in town,” Akira replies.

Mementos itself is a wide, round room with a platform hosting a DJ in the center. “Who are we looking for aga –“

“Joker!”

The both turn to see a tall man wearing a cap, waiting by entrance they just came in. “Thanks, man,” Akira says, taking the duffle bag the man had been holding.

“You be careful tonight, alright?” Hanged Man says. “I heard the cops are posting more men around the spot you guys are trying to get at.”

“Queen and Oracle have been monitoring them for the past week and half, they’re almost positive they have the routes mapped out.”

“Good,” Hanged Man. “I’m gonna get myself a drink before I go home, I’ll see you later.”

They bump the backs of their fists together, and Hanged Man walks away – giving Goro something like a glare for a moment, before smirking at him, as he goes.

“He didn’t seem as scary as your description led me to believe,” Goro says.

“People usually aren’t as bad as they sound,” Akira says.

Goro doesn’t know whether or not he agrees with that.

Akira checks the time on his phone. “We’re taking a different entrance out than we came in, it’ll get us to the sight faster.”

Goro follows. The way out is faster than the way they came in. Akira seems to be humming to himself but Goro doesn’t recognize the song.

They come out in a narrow bar playing quiet jazz music. Goro thinks the bartender might be a drag queen, but he isn’t so sure. He waves on their way out, to be polite.

Once they’re outside again, Akira says, “Anyway, it’s you because you are the mayor’s son.”

Goro feels his stomach start to turn over at the sound of that, as they start to walk. “What does that –“

“It means that I felt sorry for you.”

Goro is a bit taken aback by that. “I don’t need pity.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think you need. I saw you, at school. You needed some help.”

Goro knows that people ignore him on purpose, because of his father. No one’s ever gotten physical with him, but there is the occasional insult shoved at him in the hallways. He had assumed that no one was really looking at him. He can’t even think of what he must look like.

“I don’t need help.”

Akira stops, looks him in the eyes. “Then what made you decide to come out with a stranger tonight?”

Goro pauses, biting the inside of his cheek. “Father made me turn off the lights.”

Akira starts walking again. “You have a bedtime?”

“I have a headache.”

Akira laughs, and Goro thinks that must have been worth it to say.

“Oh boy,” Akira says. “You’re going to fit in with us just fine.”

“Really? Your friends seem more like you than I do.”

Akira is about to reply, but breathes a laugh, grinning. “I think you might be more like me than most of them, actually.” Akira spins on one foot, so he can face Goro and walk (backwards) at the same time. “We’re misfits, you know? We would have been _The_ Misfits, instead of The Phantoms, but that name was already taken.”

“Misfits?”

“I’m actually surprised you don’t recognize me,” Akira says. “Or maybe, I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t.”

The turn a corner in to a small parking lot, and suddenly it is incredibly clear what they’re doing out here tonight. It’s the building that used to be the biggest library in the city. It was abandoned a month or so ago because they just couldn’t get enough money to keep open. Now, the thinnest and tallest side of building has stencils taped on and wires rigged up above so they can pulley themselves up and down to paint.

Akira pulls his mask down properly over his face, so Goro does as well.

All of the others from earlier are milling around, all wearing their masks, looking at more stencils or testing the wires. Akira leaves the bag with the paint by the wall. “You’re going up first,” he tells Goro.

“What?”

Akira looks at him. “You’re getting the full experience. You and Fox are going up to do the first coat of paint. From there, the others are going to take turns doing the rest so you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But you’re going up at least once.”

Goro looks at how high up they’ll have to go. “Are you going up there too?”

“Maybe,” Akira replies. “Depends on you. If you’re uncomfortable, there are other places you and I can go tonight. I live in the attic above a coffee shop, we can get coffee and you can see the sunrise.”

A girl Goro thinks he might recognize, but can’t place the name of, walks over holding a harness. “Hey, Star,” Akira says.

She smiles, and it clicks. “You’re that shogi player,” Goro says.

She grins. “And you’re the son of the devil.”

Goro pauses and has to hold his breath to keep from laughing. “Yeah, I think my father deserves that.”

“I loved this library,” she says. “They locked all the books inside, they didn’t even donate them to other places. Thank you for participating with us, tonight.”

With that, she helps Goro step into the harness and adjusts it for him. His fingers start to shake like they did in the tunnel earlier. “Nervous?” Akira asks.

“How confident are you in this pulley thing?”

Akira laughs. “This, we’ve done a few times, you should be fine.”

Goro takes a deep breath, looking up at the wall. Panther comes over and straps a belt onto him with cans of paint strapped into it. “Since this is the bottom layer, you’re just going to use the same color in all the stencils,” she says. “It’s really easy, just don’t hold the can too close or too far from the wall. She hands him a paper painting mask. “And make sure you keep your nose and mouth covered with this.”

Star comes over and clips Goro’s harness to the pulley. “Ready?” she asks.

“As I’ll ever be, I guess,” he replies.

“Just do what Fox does, you’ll be fine,” she says.

Suddenly, he’s being pulled up the wall and it’s game time. Fox gives him a thumbs-up from the other pulley, so he takes a can of paint from his belt. It takes some testing, to see how close he should hold the can, but it’s more intuitive than he expected.

He finds the repetition rather soothing. Paint, check, lower, paint, check, lower.

Before he knows it, he’s back on the ground and Star is removing his belt and harness. He notices a boy with them he hasn’t been introduced to, he’s wearing a mask and filming everything, but Goro supposes they’ll be introduced eventually if he’s important.

“How did that feel?” Akira asks him.

“Fast,” Goro replies.

Akira grins. “You wanna go back up?”

Goro finds himself shaking his head, as he takes a moment to notice how much paint is on his hands. “I do want to stay to see what it’s going to look like when it’s done, though.”

Akira sits down on the pavement of the parking lot, so Goro sits too. The others are joking around, laughing, more painting. “I prefer to watch than to really join in, most of the time,” Akira says, quietly. “None of this has every really been about me, I’m just a means of gathering everyone.”

Goro looks over, met with the sight of Akira’s profile. “Why were you surprised I don’t recognize you?”

Akira is quiet for a moment, half-smiling at his friends. “My parents,” he says. “My dad ran for mayor at the same time yours did.”

“Kurusu,” Goro says. “Your father was Shotaro Kurusu.”

“I go by Sakura, now,” Akira says. “Oracle and I were adopted by the same man, about a year apart from each other.”

“Where are your parents?”

Akira shakes his head. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember the dirt that got dug up about my father. He was dealing drugs. My mom died from an overdose after he had to drop out of the race and then he didn’t want to deal with me on his own.”

“My grandmother guilted my father into keeping me.”

“But I bet you wish she hadn’t.”

Goro nods, but doesn’t reply.

“We all have things like that in our pasts,” Akira says. “We made friends with each other because no one else wanted all our baggage.”

“But you think I’m more like you than the others?”

“Maybe that was too strong,” he chuckles. “What I meant was, I think you and I have more similar ways of dealing with in than the others. Skull wants to fight his frustration out, Noir will fake nice forever unless you can force her real feelings out. You and I, we’ll just fade into the background if there’s no one there to drag us out. I get the feeling you’d like revenge for whatever happened to your mother, but there’s no one to blame for it so there’s nowhere to put those feelings.”

“How do you know what happened to my mother?”

“You father wasn’t exactly subtle about leaning on her death for sympathy before the election.”

There is a lull of silence. “I wanted to hurt him for doing that,” Goro says quietly. “For using her memory as a crutch.”

Akira nods. “I know the feeling.”

Goro takes a deep breath, the painting looks like it’s nearly halfway done. “Who made the stencils?”

“Fox drew them up,” Akira replies. “Oracle and Noir helped him cut them.”

“It looks nice.”

Akira nods. “It does.”

“Does he always draw up the art?”

“Normally. We all sort of toss around ideas, but he’s got the best talent of the group of us, if we’re doing big projects like this.”

Goro has so many questions, about how this started, who started them up. How Akira got his number. He wants to know what Akira is like in the sunlight.

“Do you think…” Goro pauses. “Do you think we could hang out? Sometime?”

Akira grins, and it makes Goro’s chest warm. “Of course,” he says.

It feels like they’ve been there for a few hours, by the time they’re done. It’s been a long night, Goro got stuck in a Nine Non-Blonde’s sing-along with Oracle and Skull for a little while.

Goro has fun. More fun than he’s had in ages.

Cleanup almost feels somber in comparison.

The boy who was filming before takes a few photographs on the finished piece, and of them putting away equipment. “I’ll have this up on the blog by morning,” he says.

“Thank you for documenting for us, Moon,” Akira says, patting him on the shoulder.

“Are you sure I can’t take your portraits and post biographies for all of you?”

Akira shakes his head. “Video is one thing, having halfway decent pictures of our faces is too close for comfort.”

Moon smiles anyway. “I’ll see you guys at school tomorrow, I have to get all this stuff uploaded.”

Everyone waves as Moon takes off. One by one, the others all start leaving, but Akira stays to stare at their work. The Phantom Thieves Logo is at the bottom, and above it is a mural of books and words, with big block letters on top that reads _No Knowledge, No Freedom_.

“It’s beautiful,” Goro says.

“It’ll be painted over by the end of the week.”

Goro looks at him. “What?”

“All of our work disappears.” Akira doesn’t move his gaze from the wall. “Your father already knows his system is broken. That fact that we can find a way to do this at all proves it. He hates it. So, he hides it. We knew before we started any of this that what we make would be taken away from us, but the art was never for us. It’s for the people who live here to know that there’s a way to fight back. I like to think of our art as peaceful protest.”

Goro shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”

“You want to come out with us again?”

“I’d like to, I think.”

Akira takes off his mask for the first time all night, and walks them out of the parking lot. “I have to warn you, you might be arrested if they find us out.”

“I’m prepared for that.”

Akira’s lips turn up in a small smile. “I’m _still_ not prepared to be arrested,” Akira says. “Skull might be, Noir too. But it’s the last thing I’m prepared to handle for any of us. That’s why I have so many friends out here looking out for us.”

Goro nods slowly, and they walk. “You have a community out here, don’t you?”

Akira hums in affirmation.

“Must be nice.”

It takes a while, but they walk back to the station where they left their clothes in the ceiling. Skull has already returned his mask to the bag by the time the two of them have gotten there. Goro leaves his own mask in the bag, wishing he could take it as a souvenir for this long night.

The sky is already shifting colors when they come back up. Akira has his glasses back on. “Come on, let’s get you home,” Akira chuckles.

Goro is practically a zombie as Akira walks him home, he almost doesn’t care about how much noise he makes as he drops himself into bed, fully clothed.

 

* * *

 

His alarm startles him. It’s been ages since he actually slept until it went off.

He goes through his morning routine like it’s foreign. Stuck between wondering if last night was a dream or if he’s finally losing his mind.

His father drops him off at school, no words exchanged, as usual.

He feels like a ghost, going to his locker, finding his way to homeroom.

But then, Haru Okumura waves to him when she comes in.

Goro thinks of Akira. Of misfits. Of past baggage.

He thinks of Okumura foods and scandals.

Ryuji Sakamoto and Ann Takamaki take a moment from their bickering to wink at him as they pass him on their way to third period.

He thinks of rumors, of interracial couples.

Makoto Nijima gives him a smile when she stops into his science class to pick up something from the room for her teacher.

He thinks of dead police and mysterious gunshots.

When he goes to his locker after the last bell, Akira Sakura is waiting for him.

He thinks of friendship. He thinks of his overbearing father. He thinks of fun.

He thinks Akira must make a point of surrounding himself with people who don’t have much left to lose.

“Wanna walk to my place?” Akira asks. “Coffee’s on me.”

Goro smiles.


End file.
